An impressively mossy recumbent beech. Still doing okay...

Old growth beech tree, Fagus grandifolia , Fort Hill SNP and Heritage site.

The largest two of the three have now fallen due to a storm.

Canby's trail.

Plant of the Day

Saturday 23 December 2023

At Gordon Castle, Scotland, these pillars of Fagus sylvatica Atropurpurea Group (copper beech, purple beech) add height and structure to the 100m long central borders. The designer Arne Maynard surrounded the topiary tree pillars with herbaceous plants in a soft colour palette with flowers and foliage of blue, purple and white with touches of yellow and apricot.

Jill Raggett

beech leaves

Path through Beech (Fagus sylvatica) woodland

Photo by Peter Lewis

LEAF DRAGONS! I've been really looking forward to drawing these little guys <3 They can grow to be huge, with the oldest, Oak, the size of a small forest, but these ones are just little, the thickness of your index finger. Llayan dragons all share their appearance with the trees around them.

I always associate Llayad with golden colours, therefore autumn, but deciduous trees from Australia are thin on the ground (there are two, one of which is subtropical) and I've not found one at all in South Africa. The single temperate deciduous tree I've got is the tanglefoot fagus, represented by the middle dragon here. Llayans therefore refer to autumn as the 'turning of the fagus.' There are three other related faguses (fagi? idk), all of which are evergreen and one of which is actually Kiwi, but screw you I'm bringing them into Llayad and making them deciduous: the myrtle fagus, flat-leafed fagus and the silver fagus.

Red moulmein cedar, represented by the top dragon, is the one that's technically subtropical but I'm stretching it into the Llayan mountains so it can also be temperate. Ditto the white lilac, which is more of a tropical tree that goes gold when it feels like it (so far as I can tell). There's one next to the cafe I often have lunch at and I had no idea it was Australian. Definitely not native to my area but there you go, Llayad can have them.

Finally the, almond of flame, represented by the bottom dragon, is again a straight up tropical tree I'm making temperate, native to south-east Asia so y'know what it counts. That's as native 'deciduous' as I've managed to get.

This is all relevant to the dragons, because the deciduous ones will turn to autumn colours and subsequently lose their leaves in winter, so they can no longer fly until they get new bright green growth in spring. They have seedpods which grow at the tip of their tails, which they'll then drop in the ground and let it grow into a tiny new sapling of a new dragon!

Dragons are very much creatures of magic, nothing to do with fire (though, idk, maybe those which do well with fire and need it to germinate seeds do make fire) but they have some connection with the wind and the weather. I know exactly what that connection is but that's spoilers, so shh. They communicate with twists of wind around the ankles, an uncomfortable breeze up the back of the neck or a soft waft through the hair, up to destructive gales and dark clouds full of lightning.

They may or may not be related to the sea dragons of Tsayth, who can tell?

Vere Temple, Beech leaves - V&A Museum

bauhaus in #alfeld #alfeldleine #niedersachsen #gropius #waltergropius #fagus #faguswerk #karlbenscheidt #bauhaus #bauhausarchitecture #bauhausarchitektur #bauhausdesign https://www.instagram.com/p/Chhd0fXs7I3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

A couple of stunted beech trees growing out of the side of a small cliff; made extra-mossy by being shaded out by a conifer platnation. <3

A change of seasons

#faggeta #fagus #fagussylvatica #faggio #autumn #fall #foliaaaage #autunno #piantesnobbate #ispirazioneZERO https://www.instagram.com/p/Ci0vbiOM0DQ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Plant of the Day

Thursday 5 January 2023

These large trees have the distinctive habit of Fagus sylvatica 'Pendula' (weeping beech) with wide-spreading main boughs draped with long, pendulous side-branches. It was a treat to be on a level with the tree canopy viewing it from the embankment towpath of the Caledonian Canal, Inverness, Scotland.

Jill Raggett

Beech trees (Fagus sylvatica) at night in winter, with lamp post illuminating

Photo by Ernie Janes